Affirmative Action, An Idea Whose Time Has Gone?

In 1965, during a commencement speech at Howard University, then-President Lyndon Johnson stated, “You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘You are free to compete with others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.”

With those words, the idea of affirmative action was born. Although it has been distorted and misused over the years, affirmative action simply stands for the policy that when two or more people are similarly (not equally) qualified for a position, be it employment or admission to an institution of higher learning, then the race and/or gender of an individual can be considered as a factor in deciding who to choose.

At its inception, many critics argued that the use of similar, instead of equal, in making hiring or admission decisions essentially meant that people with inferior qualifications were being favored, thus cheating not only more qualified individuals, but consumers as well, since they were being forced to rely on less qualified people for their goods and services.

However, what was ignored in this argument is the reality that, after over two hundred years of slavery and another hundred years of both de jure and de facto segregation, equality in America was a myth. Employers, in making hiring decisions, customarily considered the work experience of the applicant. This meant that white males, who were routinely hired for the most desirable and best paying jobs, always had the work experience advantage over their minority and female counterparts.

Besides the similar vs. equal criticism, affirmative action policies faced other obstacles as well, ironically from The United States Constitution—a document that was allegedly created to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility . . promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty . . .”

Article III, Section Three of the constitution outlaws “corruption of blood,” a practice that was once used to punish treason by denying the families of alleged traitors the right to inherit property. Many opponents of affirmative action have cited this clause as an indication that America’s founders expressly rejected the idea that the sins of the parents could be visited upon their children; thus people born after slavery was abolished should not be penalized because their ancestors were slaveholders, and people born after de jure racial segregation was outlawed should not be penalized because their ancestors politically or economically benefited from racial segregation.

Of course, those citing this argument conspicuously ignore another: if one should not be penalized for past wrongs, neither should one benefit from them. Yet rarely, if ever, has anybody in white America expressed a willingness to give up, or make reparations for, the economic benefits that slavery and segregation provided to their race.

Even the amendments added to the constitution at the end of the civil war—in particular the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment—failed to bring racial justice to America. Although this clause optimistically promised that all races were entitled to “equal protection of the laws,” the courts soon interpreted it to mean that any laws or policies based upon race, even those intended to enhance the opportunities of historically oppressed minorities, had to survive the highest form of judicial scrutiny (known as the “strict scrutiny test”) to be considered constitutional.

Ironically such laws always seemed to pass this “strict scrutiny” test when they detrimentally affected racial minorities. In 1896, for example, the United States Supreme Court, in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, ruled that racial segregation did not violate the Equal Protection Clause, thus making the doctrine of “separate but equal” the law of the land. In the 1944 case of Korematsu v. United States, this same court held that it was constitutional for the government to place Americans of Japanese descent into “internment camps.”

Even the landmark Brown vs. Topeka decision—which gave birth to the modern day civil rights movement by declaring that “separate but equal” was “inherently unequal”—did not resurrect the Equal Protection Clause. Instead the United States Congress had to rely largely on the “Commerce Clause” to obtain the constitutional authority necessary to pass civil rights legislation during the 1960s.

The death knell for the Equal Protection Clause finally sounded in 2007 in the case known as Meredith v. Jefferson County, but more accurately described as Plessy Restored. In this case, the racists who currently comprise a majority of the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Equal Protection Clause prohibits race from being used as a factor in the desegregation of schools. In perhaps the biggest display of hypocrisy since this increasingly corrupt court illegally elevated George W. Bush to the White House, many of the so-called “justices” cited the Brown case to rationalize their decision.

One of these justices was the lone African-American on the Supreme Court—Clarence Thomas. Thomas is a member of a growing number of “conservative” African-Americans, like former University of California Regent Ward Connerly, who are now condemning affirmative action policies, primarily on the grounds that such policies diminish African-Americans, since their accomplishments are stigmatized by the perception of white Americans that “preferential treatment” always plays a role in their success. Yet by condemning affirmative action on this basis, conservative African-Americans are really confirming why affirmative action is still needed: true equals in a society do not feel the need to appease the majority, nor, if they are truly equals, should they be concerned about what this majority thinks.

One of the world’s unsettled questions is whether art imitates life or life imitates art. Men like Connerly and Thomas appear to prove the latter, since their antics and self-loathing mirror that of Sgt. Waters (brilliantly played by the late Adolph Caesar), a character in the 1984 movie A Soldier’s Story.

(Warning – Spoilers Below). In this movie, set near the end of World War II, Waters is murdered near a racially segregated army base in Louisiana. Although initial suspicion falls upon the white populace, it is later discovered that Waters was murdered by his own men. As Wikipedia explains, Waters was the victim of what W.E.B. Dubois termed a “double consciousness.” Believing that the men under his command were the reason whites hated African-Americans in general and him in particular, Waters came to hate African-Americans as well, and did everything he could to degrade and abuse them.

Not surprisingly, Connerly and Thomas have found a receptive audience from white Americans who support the contention that affirmative action policies are “preferential treatment.” Yet, just as Thomas and Connerly’s arguments fail, so too does white America’s.

Even a cursory view of American society and culture proves that white Americans do not hate “preferential treatment.” They only hate when the “wrong” people are being preferred.

A somewhat humorous, but nonetheless excellent, illustration of this phenomenon occurred on Comedy Central’s Showbiz Show. Actress Gwyneth Paltrow had stated in an interview that even when she was a little girl, she always knew she would be “successful.” The Showbiz Show’s host David Spade then explained that since Paltrow’s mother is actress Blythe Danner, and since Paltrow’s father Bruce was a director, writer and producer, there were few obstacles standing between her and her so-called “success.”

But Paltrow is not alone. The worlds of entertainment, business and politics are overflowing with people whose alleged “success” is more the product of nepotism and cronyism than talent and ability.

Some examples: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia routinely denounces affirmative action policies in his rulings, yet his son Eugene has a government position as Solicitor of the Labor Department; Janet Rehnquist, whose late father William also opposed affirmative action policies while serving as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was an Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services; and Michael Powell, son of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, served as the Chair of the Federal Communications Commission.

And one should not forget that America’s premier war criminal and illegal occupant of the White House, George W. Bush, has made a career out of denouncing affirmative action as “preferential treatment.” Yet—from his admission to Harvard, to his avoidance of combat service in Vietnam, to his illegal theft of the 2000 election with the aid of his brother Jeb—Bush’s entire career has been manufactured from his family’s wealth and influence. As the late Molly Ivins often pointed out, Bush was born on third base, but still wants Americans to believe he hit a triple.

Yet you never see these individuals trembling in a corner or shirking the limelight because they are embarrassed over how they’ve achieved their wealth and success. In fact you see quite the opposite. Celebrity-oriented (i.e. garbage) television has made a cultural icon out of Paris Hilton, who is famous for nothing but having the name of Hilton. Audiences cheer wildly when actors who are offspring of actors—like Kate Hudson, Ben Stiller, Charlie Sheen, Drew Barrymore, and others of their ilk—sashay across talk show stages to discuss their latest “project.” Even when Bush’s daughter Jenna appears on these shows, nobody asks her why she’s not fighting in the war that “daddy” started in Iraq.

Yet African-Americans are, for some inexplicable reason, supposed to feel some sense of “shame” for being aided by affirmative action policies, even though such policies are at least intended to bring about a more just society. If Americans in the poor and middle classes could remove the timbers from their eyes, they would see that many of those who criticize preferential treatment have also profited from preferential treatment.

So why have these critics been so successful in attacking affirmative action policies?

The answer is that most Americans never envision themselves competing with the Bushes or the Hiltons or the Barrymores, so they are not directly impacted by the preferential treatment these individuals enjoy. What most Americans compete for are the crumbs, in the form of employment opportunities, thrown from the tables of the rich and powerful. By turning race against race in the relentless competition for the fewer and fewer good paying jobs, Americans remain oblivious to the fact that the rich are continuing to keep the majority of the wealth concentrated in the fewest possible hands.

Decades ago, when President Dwight Eisenhower expressed reluctance to pursue civil rights legislation on the grounds that “You can’t legislate morality,” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. replied, “[t]he law cannot make a person love me, but it can stop him from lynching me . . .”

But what if the person who cannot love others because of their race is in charge of hiring for a major corporation? Although he might be legally prohibited from lynching, he certainly is under no legal obligation to hire anyone he doesn’t want. And even if race or gender doesn’t play a role in his decisions, nepotism and cronyism often does, and these factors incessantly favor white males.

In capitalist societies that also purport to be “Christian,” one of the most ignored New Testament passages is when Jesus remarks, “[I]t is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” It is not the riches that create the difficulty but the man, the way he acquired these riches, the way he uses them, the way he treats others who don’t have them, that gives credence to Christ’s words.

In the maquiladoras of Juarez, Mexico, young women, working long hours for low pay, miles from home and family, are being murdered in staggering numbers. In times of war workers are often called upon to sacrifice by taking pay cuts or working long hours. During these same times of war companies often charge the government inflated prices for their goods and services. Workers are often required to display their patriotism by not striking or provoking labor unrest during wartime. Yet corporations are never required to demonstrate such patriotism, and will abandon a country without hesitation for cheaper labor markets abroad, unconcerned about the hardships their exodus creates, and with the audacity to turn around and sell their products in the very nation, and to the very people, they’ve abandoned. And in this milieu of greed and hypocrisy, race is turned against race by the mere utterance of the words “preferential treatment,” even as the wealthy unabashedly reap the benefits of nepotism and cronyism.

So if you really want to oppose preferential treatment, start at the top. Boycott the nepotism, cronyism and elitism that created the need for affirmative action in the first place. Don’t elect those whose only qualifications are their parents or spouse’s coattails; don’t view movies or television shows starring, or purchase products from, or shop at businesses owned by people who owe their success to nepotism and cronyism; learn to measure success, not by the wealth a person has, but by how he or she obtained it. Clearly an honest person who starts with nothing and accumulates thousands is more of a success than a scion of nepotism and cronyism who starts with millions and accumulates millions more.

Finally, stop being seduced into hatred and divisiveness by those who oppose affirmative action policies. Remember most of them only oppose “preferential treatment” when they are not the ones being “preferred.”

David R. Hoffman, Legal Editor of Pravda.Ru